The Predator and The Prey
by OrcaTimes
Summary: A psychopathic serial killer with a predilection for ambitious women is at large, and a vicious game of cat-and-mouse ensues. Only question is; who is the predator, and who is the prey? Rated for language, violence, and rape/non-con.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

 _ **The Prince Charles Medical Centre, VA**_

The night sky was a canvas, saturated with ink and barely visible above the dense grey shroud of fog. It enveloped the silhouettes of the trees that stood like tall sentinels on either side of the hospital walkway, long shadows cast by the muted glow of the iron street lights that, all things considered, were doing a poor job of keeping the area well-lit against the rolling tides of mist.  
Underneath the reaching shadow of an evergreen tree, a shapeless man stood waiting, the corners of his mouth twitching in a warped smile. It couldn't have turned out more perfectly if he'd been able to manufacture the weather himself, and this made him happy. Everything had fallen into place. The man lifted his wrist to check the time on his silver rolex, his dark eyes well enough adjusted to the gloom that he could glance at the watch face. It was late. It was foggy. It was perfect.  
He'd been watching the woman, obsessively, for nearly four months, and he was so close to reaping the rewards of his dedication that he could almost taste the sweetness on the tip of his tongue. He knew everything of importance about this woman. He almost felt as if he had built her himself, from the ground up. To begin with, it had been her physical appearance that had attracted him. The woman had long, dark hair that he had noted was more likely to be caught up in a ponytail than spilling over her shoulders. She had pale eyes that could look blue in the open beams of sunlight, grey in the downcast effect of clouds overflowing with rain, green in the hesitant growth of spring. She was slim, she was intelligent, she was a thousand different things that made every hair on his body prickle with anticipation. There had been two particular reasons that, in the man's mind, had confirmed that this woman was meant for him. She was addicted to her work above all else, which consequently lead to the second reason- she was really quite alone. She was attractive, but focused. She had a handful of friends, namely the colleagues that she spent the majority of her waking hours with. She occasionally had sexual partners, but never anything serious. The man could tell that this woman, the object of his every fantasy and desire, had carefully constructed walls around herself; and he intended on breaking them apart, brick by brick and layer by layer.  
Of course he knew the woman's name -he knew everything- but he didn't care about whatever superfluous label her parents had given her at birth. What mattered, what _really_ mattered, was that she had been chosen to be his first. Not his first fuck, nor his first kill. But she would be the first of something.

The man was roused from deep within his thoughts by the sudden sound of a twig snapping and a flurry of movement from underneath a shrub a few feet away. He felt his breath catch in the back of his throat, and only when a small rabbit popped out from the foliage did he let it go. He had been building up to this point for months, but he would call it off in a heartbeat if he deemed it necessary, He must protect himself above everything else, even if that meant he must let this woman go and search for another one. The man was confident, however, that this would not be necessary.  
He waited until it was 23:41, when he could just make out that the light had been switched off in the office on the third floor, fourth window from the left. _Her_ window. _Her_ office. He felt his pulse quickening with expectation as he crept across the grass, towards the parking lot, his silent form cloaked by the pitch black stain of the night and the haze of the rising fog. He was ready. He was so, _so_ ready for this. He could feel his right eye twitching, a nervous tic that had emerged during a particularly anxious childhood and had stayed with him ever since. He forced himself to halt, to take a few deep breaths before he continued. This was not a night for mistakes.  
As he had expected, the car park's nightly guard was fast asleep at his station, his hip flask filled with Irish whiskey poorly concealed in his jacket pocket. The man smirked at the incredible, convenient idiocy of the general population, tipping the rim of his hat in a mock salute at the intoxicated guard. Quickly lowering his head as he passed, he pulled the collar of his black trench coat to cover his face, turning away from the single security camera as he passed it. He knew no one would be watching. There would only be two witnesses to what was about to happen, and he intended one of them to be dead within ten days. He had a system.

The woman was tired after working almost fifteen hours straight, her thoughts elsewhere, as he had been certain would be the case. If she noticed him lurking in the shadows in her peripheral vision, then she didn't react fast enough to do anything about it. The man was a tightly coiled serpent, and when he sprang forward from the cover of darkness, he had the woman in his arms in a fraction of a second. One hand clamped a damp cloth over her mouth, the other pulled her body close against his.

" _Sweet dreams._ " He whispered, as the woman melted into his waiting arms.


	2. Chapter One

**A/N:** Hey! I didn't expect to get any reviews on the prologue, so thank you so much to those of you who took the time to leave me one! I decided to put this chapter up early as a sort of thank you, and I hope you all enjoy it.  
I have done _so_ much research already. I think this one is gonna kill me. Okay, so some basic notes beforehand:  
\- This is set sometime in season 2, I think, probably. I've just finished watching that season again so I figured I might as well set it then.  
\- If I make scientific mistakes, or any other kind of mistake really, I apologise. I love to learn and I've enjoyed researching for this, but my day job is a retail worker so I'm not exactly the brightest crayon in the box. (No offence to retail workers, I think personally the dazzling lights in my store and the constant, overwhelming tide of stupid customers are slowly melting my brain.)  
\- I've tried to use real places for this fic, but I probably will change a few names  
\- **There is going to be dark content in this story. It's just a dark story. I might not remember to put warnings in every bad chapter so please go carefully if it may trigger a post-traumatic response.**

* * *

 **Chapter One**

Temperance Brennan had always felt a sense of satisfaction once she'd closed the door on another lost soul hanging in Limbo, as if she'd helped to write the epilogue of their story, closing the book on the last chapter of their life. This time, it had been a male Inuit. He had been in his mid thirties, strong, and had died in the late nineteenth century. He had been murdered -an ice pick to the skull, she had deduced- although why, she couldn't tell. The man had been found with a tiny soapstone carving of a polar bear, and Temperance believed that he had been a tribal member of the Inuit of Baffin Island, who had used soapstone for generations. She thought of Inuksuk Point close to Cape Dorset, a national historic site of Canada that featured more than a hundred Inuksuk -stone cairns-, all of them built by the indigenous people. An Inuksuk is built in the likeness of man, and traditionally the meaning of the mysterious stone figures was 'Someone was here' or 'You are on the right path'. If Temperance had been able, she would have buried her Inuit man's remains under an Inuksuk. She liked that they were used both as memorials to departed loved ones and as navigational aids. The idea that one person's loss could result in another life being found was calming.

"Coffee?" The voice over her shoulder startled her, and as she whirled around she brought her hands up in a defensive arc, only to drop them when she saw Booth standing before her, a takeaway cup of coffee held in each hand and a sheepish smile on his face.

"Booth! You startled me," She took the proffered drink, blowing gently on the steaming liquid. She wasn't sure what time it was, nor how much time she had spent in Limbo, but she was suddenly very grateful for the caffeine boost. She smiled her thanks, and turned back to finish the last few notes on the Inuit's file, signing her name at the bottom. Booth watched her as her face relaxed into an expression of concentration, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

"Don'tcha wanna know why I'm here Bones?" Temperance shrugged dismissively as she closed the file. She turned back to her partner.

"I would assume that you found a body that you need me to identify." She peeled off her latex gloves and made to follow him.

"Yep. Decomposed remains, found in Pohick Bay this morning by some traumatised campers. Local sheriff took one look at the body and had the case bounced over to me." Brennan looked at him sharply.

"Because it's a high-profile case, or because you work with me?" Booth shook his head, but he couldn't resist another smile as he looked at his partner sideways.

"Why, does it have to be one or the other?"

"No, of course not. Those are just two possibilities."They had reached Brennan's office, and Booth held the door open for her so she could grab her coat before they left.

"Well apparently it looks like the body's been there a while. Lots of insect activity, and it looks like the body's all beat up."

"Good, Hodgins will be pleased- with the insect activity, not that the body is," She trailed off, looping the coat over her arm and following Booth back out of her office. "All 'beat up'."

"Hey, I think you'll find that's the technical term Bones." Her brow furrowed in confusion before she realised he was joking.

* * *

On any other day, Pohick Bay would have been breathtakingly beautiful on that warm afternoon in early May. The bright sun hanging above their heads served to strengthen the natural colours of their surroundings- the grass a vivid green, the water in the surrounding bay glimmered as though the sunlight was being reflected by thousands of deep blue sapphires.  
Unfortunately, Booth and the Squints were there for an entirely different type of sightseeing. A large perimeter had been sealed off from the visitors to the regional park, most of whom were craning their necks in an effort to see what was going on. Booth couldn't help but think that if they saw the body his partner was currently examining, most of them would turn-tail and flee in the opposite direction- and who could blame them? The stench of decomposing flesh and the soft scent of spring wild flowers battled for control, with the former winning by a proverbial landslide. Compared to the natural beauty of the park, the body was a stark contrast.

"The remains are that of a female, Caucasian, early thirties," Bones' observations woke Booth from his reverie. "My initial findings are that she's been dead for two to three weeks, but I won't know for sure until we get back to the lab."

"I would agree with you on that." Cam knelt beside Brennan, cocking her head to one side as she examined the small amount of tissue that clung stubbornly to the bones. "There's a lot of insect and wild animal activity here."

"There's evidence of a great deal of antemortem trauma on the body, and her wrists and ankles were bound." Bones said softly. Booth and Cam weren't sure whether she was talking to them or herself. "It looks as though she was badly beaten before she was murdered." Booth's gaze swept over the surrounding area.

"Y'know, I can't see any clothes. Maybe it was sexually motivated?" Both women looked up at him, while he tried to look anywhere but the body.

"You think she was raped? That's one possibility." Cam nodded in agreement.

"I'll see what I can get from the remaining tissue when we get back to the lab. Anything else to do here? Dr. Brennan?" Bones straightened, peeling her gloves from her hands and tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

"No, I've done everything of necessity. I'll complete the rest of my investigation in the lab- I'll ask Hodgins to collect any particulates or insects and then the remains can be transferred to the Jeffersonian."

* * *

Ninety minutes later, and with another cup of coffee in her system, Temperance was leaning over the body, searching for the cause of death. Sometimes, anthropology was like a jigsaw puzzle- but instead of searching for the missing piece, she was looking for the gap it left behind. Only when she discovered the gaps could she start to fill in the picture.  
Brennan was waiting on Cam to finish up with the remaining flesh so she could have Zack clean the bones. Together, they would scan the remains with the electron microscope to capture every injury that this unknown woman had suffered. ' _Someone was here._ ' Brennan thought as she used a pair of tweezers to pick a small fibre of thread from the victim's wrist. Angela could do a facial reconstruction while she and Zack worked on finding cause of death, and Hodgins could continue to analyse his bugs and particulates. She and Booth would question suspects, one of her team would make an astounding discovery, and they would catch the killer. The woman would have her name back, and justice would, hopefully, be served. That was how it went.

"Is that her?" Booth asked, striding into Angela's lab in that way he did every time they were on a case.

"It's the best I could manage, with all that damage to the skull." Angela couldn't suppress the shudder that rolled up her spine.

"Yes, there was a lot of trauma- both ante and postmortem. Did you run it through the systems to look for a match?" Brennan tone was characteristically blunt. Her friend sighed, shaking her head at the 3D image seemingly suspended before them.

"Poor woman. I fed the image through the Missing Persons Database, but so far there's been no-" Angela was cut short by the beeping of the computer, and all three turned towards it. "Okay, scratch that." She smiled, and Brennan returned the gesture.

"Julie Hill. Thirty two years old, been missing for twenty three days now." Booth read from the screen, glancing at the attached photograph. Julie had been pretty, he decided, with her pale blue-grey eyes and soft smile.

"It looks to be a match. Dental records will confirm. This could give us a better timeline as well- Zack and I determined the time of death to have been around thirteen days ago; which is congruent with Cam and Hodgins' findings." Booth turned his back on the computer to look at her.

"You're saying that she disappeared ten days before she was murdered? So what happened in between?" Bones gave a small shrug of her shoulders.

"I don't know that yet."

* * *

"Shouldn't we be informing her family first, rather than talking to her colleagues?" Booth shifted uncomfortably in the driver's seat. His partner was strong, tenacious and independent, but there was an element of naivety to her that made him feel perhaps a little too overprotective.

"According to the missing persons report, Julie's parents died in a car accident when she was twelve. She was a ward of the state until she turned eighteen."

"Oh." Was all Bones said. The implication hung in the air like smog. ' _She's like you,_ ', it whispered.

"Any idea on what killed her?" He asked, trying to fill the empty air between them.

"We've found several injuries consistent with blunt force trauma, but I don't believe any of them to be the fatal blow. We also found minute laryngeal fractures, but-"

"Woah woah woah, slow down there, Bones. Does that mean she was strangled?" Bones took a breath, trying to keep the words all from tumbling out at once. She often forgot that she needed to translate for Booth once she got into her flow.

"Very good, Booth! I believe that Julie was subject to strangulation, yes, but I don't think that's what killed her either. Is this it?" They had reached the Prince Charles Medical Centre, a relatively small hospital almost thirty miles from where Hill's body had been found. Booth swung his SUV into the parking lot, reversing into the first space they came to. He noted the attendant booth seated a lone security guard, who was apparently in the process of picking dirt out from under his nails with a pen knife.  
After asking at the reception desk, Booth and Brennan took the elevator to the third floor, where they knocked on the door of the hospital's Chief of Medicine- Dr. Anthony Harlow. A tall man with grey hair and black, rectangular glasses, Harlow could have looked a little austere and intimidating if not for his gentle smile. He shook their hands in a warm, friendly grasp and gestured for them to take a seat behind the grand oak desk that seemed to occupy the majority of the room.

"Is this about Dr. Hill?" He asked, filling three glasses with water from a glass decanter his assistant had set before him. Booth took a sip of his and cleared his throat before he answered.

"Yeah, I'm afraid I have some bad news." Harlow's expression fell, and he removed his glasses, flattening the arms to set them neatly on the table and knitting his fingers together.

"Oh, dear. I take it that means she has passed away?" Booth shifted forward in his chair, touching the tips of his fingers together.

"Yes sir, I'm afraid so." The doctor leaned back, sighing heavily as he ran a hand through his hair.  
"Of course, I know that it is unrealistic to expect good news after three weeks of nothing, but you can't help but hope. Julie was a wonderful, dedicated doctor."

"We're very sorry for your loss, Dr. Harlow. Was it you that reported her missing?" Bones felt she was getting much better at dealing with the bereft. She was never purposefully tactless, and she hated the looks that Booth gave her when she said something wrong.

"It's a loss to the whole hospital, I must say. No, I was away at a conference in Vegas- critical care medicine. My building is small, and it lacks some of the tech found in the bigger, more modern hospitals; so it's imperative that I keep up-to-date with new techniques. The head of Dr. Hill's department reported her missing when she didn't show up for work one morning. She had never before missed a day of work since she started working here almost five years ago."

"I see," Booth made a couple of notes. "And which department is that?"

"The Emergency Department. Shifts on ED are notoriously long and taxing, but it was the only place Julie ever wanted to work. I think she relished the challenge, to be honest with you. The head of department is Daniel Kyman- I believe he's working today if you wanted to speak to him."

"We'll be sure to do that. Can you think of anyone who had a problem with Julie? Anyone who might feel like they have reason to harm her?" The doctor looked aghsat.

"Good heavens, no! She mostly kept herself to herself, but no one had any cause for complaint. She really was a remarkable woman."

"Thanks for your cooperation, doc. We appreciate it." Booth stood up to leave and Harlow followed suit, straightening his smart jacket and proffering his hand for shaking once again.

"Of course. The PCMC will help in any way it can. Is there anything else I can do for you?" Booth paused.

"Actually, there is. Does your parking lot have security footage, Dr. Harlow?"

"There's a single camera. CCTV imaging is captured constantly but we don't generally review it unless there is cause to. Why, is there a problem?" Booth and Bones exchanged a knowing look.

"Do you think we'd be able to get the tape from the night before Dr. Hill was reported missing?" She asked, a glimmer of hope in her tone. If Julie had been abducted from the parking lot as she left work, her murderer could have been caught entering or leaving. This could be the best lead they had so far.

* * *

"According to Kyman's night-shift team, Julie left not long before midnight. She'd started work at nine that morning." Angela visibly winced.

"A fifteen hour shift? Ouch."

"Yeah, remind you of anyone else we know?" Booth's tone was sardonic. Brennan, busy examining a mark on the bone of the victim's manubrium under the electron microscope, didn't notice that all eyes were upon her until she gasped in realisation and looked up at them all.

"What?" She asked, bewildered by their stares. With the exception of Zack, their faces all dissolved into smiles. Angela patted her on the shoulder, in a way that could have been construed as condescending if it hadn't been her best friend doing it.

"Nothing, sweetie. What did you find?" Bones pointed to the large screen, Zack made a noise of sudden understanding, and this time it was the rest of the team that was left perplexed.

"See this? It's a bite mark, here-" She pointed it out. "Where the manubrium meets the cervical spine." Booth rolled his eyes good-naturedly, turning towards Cam.

"Where the shoulder meets the neck." She explained, her eyes twinkling with a smile.

"Right, thanks. What's the meaning of that, Bones? It's you that keeps reminding everyone that wild animals nearly chewed her face right off, right?" She gave him a withering look.

"No, see the oval indentation and the central sparing?" She paused, but Booth just continued to look at her questioningly. She sighed, exasperated. "The marks are from human teeth. Booth, this woman was bitten so hard that the murderer left marks on the bone!"

"Please, do _not_ tell me that we have a rapist cannibal murderer on our hands here?" He asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. Cam shook her head.

"There was no evidence on the remaining tissue that her flesh had been," She trailed off as she searched for the right words.

"Gnawed on?" Hodgins suggested. Angela shuddered once again.

"O-kay well, on that note, I'm going back to my lab. I'll start analysing the security footage, see if anything comes up." Bones nodded absently, still engrossed by the bite mark.

"I found traces of semen on the victim's tissue. The results are running through CODIS. I'll go chase that up." Cam followed Angela from the main lab. Hodgins excused himself, muttering something about soil samples that he had yet to analyse, while Zack was re-examining the fractures he had found on several of the victim's ribs. Booth watched Bones as she stared at the skeleton before her, her jaw working as though it was trying to trigger an answer that lay just beyond her reach.

"He wasn't angry." She said quietly, once Zack had left.

"Hm? Who wasn't?" She turned to him, deep concentration on her features.

"The murderer. I don't think it was a- what do you call it? A crime of passion? I think he planned this. She has no defensive wounds, so he must have taken her during a moment when he knew she'd be vulnerable."

"What, do you think she was killed by a stalker?"

"It's a possibility. Once we find cause of death, we'll be better equipped to catch this guy." Booth stepped towards her, touching her arm gently.

"You really wanna get this guy, huh?" She looked at him sharply.

"That's my job, Booth. And I'm pretty sure it's yours too." She pulled away, moving to the other side of the metal slab, and leaned close to the skull.

"I know that, Bones. And you know what I meant. This sort of cases gets to everyone." Still not meeting his gaze, Brennan sighed.

"We need to find out what happened to this woman, Booth. But whoever did this probably kept her for ten days before she was killed. The more we discover, the worse it'll get. I don't know, I suppose-" She paused, readjusting the microscope. "I suppose I feel bad that she worked so hard to get where she was. She had no family, and not many friends according to Dr. Kyman, and then her life is just extinguished by some creep that probably tortured her for over a week." Booth studied her for a moment, noticing, for the first time, how tired she looked now. He tried to remember how long she'd been working, but came up blank. Gently, he took her by the wrist, wrapping his other arm around her waist and leading her to the door.

"Where are we going?" She asked, her features softening into a smile.

" _We_ are going to get dinner. And then _you_ are going home, doing something that relaxes you and having an early night so you can be refreshed and ready to catch bad guys tomorrow." She scoffed at that, one eyebrow quirked.

"Something that relaxes me?" She repeated, her smile broader now.

"Yeah, y'know, taking a bath, yoga, beating the living crap out of anyone who touches you, that sorta thing." She laughed then, and the sound made his smile as wide as hers. He loved making her laugh.

"You're touching me," She pointed out, her eyes moving to the hand that still circled her waist. "And I have yet to beat the living crap out of you." This time it was his turn to laugh.

"And I can only thank you for that. Although it's obvious who would win. I would _so_ take you down before you got anywhere near me."

"You would not! I'm perfectly capable of throwing you down."

"It's 'take down', not 'throw down', Bones. We're talking about fighting here, not dancing."

"Bet I could beat you at that too."

"Could not!"  
Angela watched them from the doorway of her office, smiling to herself.

"They might as well be married," She said to herself, turning back to the CCTV on the screen before her. That evening had been foggy, and as the parking lot was supported by concrete beams but no walls, the image was affected too.  
Up until 23:44, all was quiet. And then, as the security guard slept on in his attendant booth -Angela rolled her eyes- a shapeless, but definite shadow crossed the screen in front of her eyes. She felt her pulse rise and her breath seemed to catch in her throat. She was, in all likeliness, looking at the murderer of the poor woman who had worked fifteen hours a day saving people's lives.


	3. Chapter Two

**A/N:** Thanks to everyone who has read and/or reviewed! I'm planning on updating weekly, because then I can stay a chapter or two ahead. Please enjoy, and let me know what you thought if you can spare the time :)

* * *

 **Chapter Two  
** Angela glanced up at the retreating backs of Booth and Brennan, but decided not to call them back. She had some work to do before the few frames of footage they had could be of any use- and even then, she wasn't sure how much she could pull from the tapes.  
At the very top corner of the frame, only moments after her first glimpse of their mystery suspect, another pair of feet emerged. Angela could just about make out a duo of heeled shoes through the dense layer of fog that stained the picture. It happened so fast, she had to rewind and watch twice more as the suspect sprang from the gloom and the victim crumpled. Within ninety seconds, a car left the parking lot, headlights switched off. A well-rehearsed routine.  
For an hour or so, Angela worked on the small amount of footage she had. She managed to pull the license plate, and texted the details to Booth. There wasn't much more she could do, so she decided to call it a night, and bumped into Cam on her way through the lab, her bag over her shoulder.

"Finishing up? Find anything?" Angela grimaced.

"Actually, yeah. I'm certain that Julie Hill was abducted from the parking lot. I got a license plate; I sent the details to Booth but it looks more likely that it was Julie's car rather than the killer's."

"He didn't drive in?"

"No, he walked in. The guard was asleep." Cam rolled her eyes and groaned.

"Maybe if he'd managed to actually do his job, that poor woman would be alive right now." Angela nodded, her expression forlorn.

"I know, right? It's just awful." A moment of silence lapsed between them. "What about you, any luck on the DNA?" Cam nodded, meeting her gaze.

"I'm thinking about calling Booth and Dr. Brennan back in. I didn't get a match, but it did pull up several open case files- other rapes and murders over several counties." Angela stopped dead in her tracks.

"So we've got a serial killer on our hands? Awesome." She contemplated for a moment. "I don't think Bren's slept in a while. Can it wait till morning, do you think?"

"There's no need to worry about me, although your concern is appreciated." Both women jumped, turning to see Brennan clicking towards them in her heels. "Zack called me. He thinks he's found the cause of death. What did you say about the DNA?" Cam explained to Brennan, and then again to Booth as he jogged up behind them.

"I ran the plate," He told Angela. "Car belonged to Julie Hill. I've put out an APB- if the killer's still driving her car around or if it's been dumped, we'll find it."

"Good, it may help us figure out where she was murdered."

"It wasn't at Pohick Bay?"

"No, Hodgins found trace evidence to suggest that she was killed elsewhere and her body dumped." Booth scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"Odd place to dump a body. Why leave it somewhere it's sure to be found?"

"Maybe the killer likes the attention?" Cam suggested. Brennan shook her head, suddenly breaking away and walking quickly towards the main lab, where Zack stood staring, engrossed, at the bones.

"Let's not jump to conclusions." She threw over her shoulder. Booth smirked as he rushed to fall into step with her, waving his goodbye to the two women. "What did you find, Zack?"

"I've found evidence of blood pooling-" He pointed out his evidence, and Bones nodded, brow furrowed. "I believe that the victim bled to death after sharp force trauma to several blood vessels. Both radial veins-" He indicated to Julie's wrists. "And femoral veins."

"Veins?" Booth asked, leaning closer to mimic Bones. "Wouldn't it have been quicker to sever the arteries?" Zack and Brennan glanced up as one, their faces reflecting equal measures of surprise. "What?" He asked, irritably. "I know things too, y'know." Bones smiled.

"You're certainly correct that an arterial bleed would likely be faster. They tend to spurt blood like a fountain. Venous bleeds are more similar to a moving body of water- they flow."

"Maybe the murderer didn't want her to die quickly." Zack muttered. Booth nodded, considering. It was a horrible thought, slowly bleeding to death over a few hours.

"Poor woman must have been terrified. And Cam thinks this guy's a serial killer- ain't that just the icing on the cake?"

"There's something else you should know, Dr. Brennan." She tore her gaze from her student, turning towards her student. "As you know, I found several fractures. The clavicle, radius, scaphoid, talus, four metatarsals, and four ribs -one true, three false- all presented varying degrees of fracture." Brennan's face creased in what could only have been sympathy for all the suffering this woman had endured.

"All of them perimortem?"

"I believe so, yes. And you should be aware, with the exception of the ribs-"

"They are the most commonly broken bones, I know." Bones interjected.

"Wait a minute," Booth was still trying to catch up with Zack's orthopaedic jargon. "You're saying that the killer broke the most common bones in the body? Why?" Zack shrugged.

"I don't know. Isn't it your job to figure that out?"

"Good job, Zack," Bones said, as she always did when she was impressed with one of her Squints. Booth liked that about her; she didn't particularly crave praise herself but always made sure to give it to her friends when she felt it was deserved.

"King of the lab!" The shout came before Hodgins was even in sight. He jogged up the platform steps, coming to a sudden halt when he registered Booth and Brennan's raised eyebrows. "Oh, uh, hey Booth. Dr. B." Booth crossed his fingers in the hopes that Hodgins had found some valuable information. So far, really, they had nothing to go on. They had a few seconds of a blurry figure on a tape, a troubling cause of death, and the DNA of a man who'd raped at least six women and had murdered at least three, with no idea of who the guy was. It wasn't that Booth didn't have faith in his partner and her team, but an involuntary shiver ran up his spine at the thought that the creep was still walking the streets- quite possibly looking for his next victim. Booth had never met the guy, but he hated him with such fury that he could practically feel his blood boiling in his veins.

"What do you have?" Bones asked, peering at the sheet of paper clasped in Hodgins' hands.

"Cam found a fibre in the back of the victim's throat. I analysed it for trace materials, and found small amounts of Trichloromethane." Booth cleared his throat, and Hodgins gave him a sheepish smile. "Sorry. It's chloroform. But -and this is the interesting bit- it appears to have been homemade."

"Guy makes his own chloroform?" Booth asked, an element of doubt in his tone. "Who the hell does that?"

"I don't know, dude. My best guess? He's being careful. Trying to be untraceable. Cam told me he's a serial, right? So the guy's spent years honing his craft, evading capture."

"Craft?" Bones didn't look impressed.

"Sorry, Dr. B. Anyway, so commercial chloroform is made by a photochemical reaction of chlorine and methane. But this stuff looks to be a mixture of your regular, garden-variety bleach, acetone -nail polish remover- and ice. There's something else too, but I'm still trying to separate the isotopes. It's pretty potent stuff." Brennan looked pensive.

"Can you try to isolate the brand of bleach and acetone used? Perhaps Booth could use it to track down large orders of it." Booth was not so confident.

"Sure, but any large orders of acetone _or_ bleach would automatically raise suspicions. It's more likely the murderer bought small amounts at once. And if he's as careful as you think he is," He turned to Hodgins. "He'll likely have paid cash. But it's worth following, if we can learn anything from it."

"Sure. Oh, and while you're both here, I found a small amount of soil on the victim. It had traces of copper, which didn't present in the dirt samples I took from Pohick Bay."

"Can you do anything with it? Narrow down the area she was killed in?" Booth asked, hopeful once again.

"I'll see what I can do, but copper is a common element in soil. It's often used in gardening." He sighed, nodding his thanks to Hodgins.

"What now?" Bones asked, turning to him.

"I spoke to the hospital earlier; the security guard that was working the night Julie disappeared is called Stanley Shaw; he's not working again until next week. He's on vacation visiting family down South with no contact details available, so we'll have to wait a few days before we can talk to him. I'm gonna go speak with the lead investigators on the other rape and murder cases this guy is connected to, you do whatever it is you Squints do, and we'll speak to the guy when he's back."

* * *

"Hey, sleeping beauty, wake up," Booth rapped hard on the guard's box with his knuckles. The man inside, who had been snoring loudly with his chin on his chest, snorted in alarm and almost fell from his chair. He was a large man, bordering on obese, nearing his sixties. He sprang to his feet with surprising agility for someone of his size, eyes wide with alarm as they swept the area before him. Once he was satisfied that he wasn't about to be murdered, he opened the door to the booth and stepped outside, grunting with the effort of it.

"Can I help you?" He asked, disgruntled. Booth flashed his badge, his expression of contempt poorly disguised.

"Special Agent Booth, this here's my partner Temperance Brennan." The guard looked perplexed. "You were working the night of Julie Hill's disappearance, is that correct?"

"Oh, so _that's_ what this is about," Shaw's voice was heavily accented by a Southern drawl. "Terrible thing, that. Damn shame- I heard she was murdered. But what's that got to do with me?" Booth's sharp intake of breath told Bones that he was angry, and she decided to step in before her partner had the man held up by his throat.

"We have reason to believe that Dr. Hill was abducted from this parking lot, Mr. Shaw. While you were on duty. Did you see anything unusual on that night, or in the weeks leading up to it?" She had mustered up all the politeness she could manage, but her tone was still cool. The colour had drained from Shaw's face, and he backed up, collapsing heavily into his chair. He took a deep, shuddering breath and pressed his fingers to his lips.

"Tha-that can't be right," He mumbled, his voice strained. "I woulda heard something. It was quiet the whole night; I don't remember anything weird happening." Booth slammed the heel of his hand against the door to the box, his temper having flared to breaking point.

"Or maybe," He hissed, moving so his face was just inches from Shaw's. "Maybe you were sleeping on the job, like we found you just now. We have CCTV evidence that you slept through the kidnapping of Julie Hill, okay? Maybe if you weren't such a lazy bastard, you might have kept her from being murdered- so how's about you think a little harder there, huh?" The colour flooded back to Shaw's cheeks, as a flush of bright red crept up the man's neck.

"Listen, Agent whatever-your-name-is, I have four kids, and three jobs to support them- so yeah I get tired. Listen, I _liked_ Dr. Hill, I never woulda let her get hurt on purpose!"

"Then _think_ , damn it, and answer my partner's question. Did you see anything weird happen?" The guard paused, stroking his unkempt beard, his forehead crumpling with concentration.

"Now that you mention it, I did see a guy couple'a times, hanging around late at night." Booth and Bones exchanged a glance, their jaws slack with incredulity. There was a pregnant pause.

"You... You _saw a guy_?" Booth hissed, his knuckles turning white as he clenched and unfurled them repeatedly. Bones thought he looked about ready to explode, and she could empathise. She'd quite happily have punched Shaw's lights out himself.

"Hey now, don't you go getting all stressy with me. I thought maybe it was one of the nurses' boyfriends or something. He'd be standing by the tree over there," He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "And then the next time I looked, he'd be gone. Seems harmless enough to me." If Brennan hadn't been so furious, she could have wept. This murder had not only been senseless, it had been preventable. If only the guard had been more alert to his surroundings. If only Julie hadn't been so attached to her work that she'd left so late at night. If only she'd had a family or more friends, people to look out for her, protect her. She was beginning to feel the pressing weight of urgency more and more with every hour they worked the case. She could hear Booth take some deep breaths, which she supposed was designed to calm him, and could tell by the continuing flare of his nostrils that it hadn't worked.

"You might wanna stay awake for this you incompetent piece of shit," He growled. "I'm only gonna say this once. You are gonna tell us everything, _everything_ you saw on the nights you saw that... Harmless man. And then, if by some miracle the hospital doesn't fire your useless ass, you're gonna man up, drink some fucking coffee, and do a night's work in a _conscious_ state. You hear me?" The man nodded fervently, sweat glistening on his brow. As soon as the man began to speak, Booth's cellphone trilled with an incoming phone call. He had a bad feeling as soon as he saw the caller ID. Motioning that Shaw should continue telling Bones, he walked a few steps away with what felt like a rock weighing down the bottom of his stomach. He flipped the cell open.

"Booth."

"Agent Booth sir, this is dispatch. We were told to call you." He shoved his spare hand deep within his pocket, glancing over at Bones.

"About what?"

"They've found a body, sir. It's thought to be connected to your ongoing case."

"Alright, text me the details." His voice had suddenly become very quiet, as if his vocal cords could only muster a few decibels. He turned towards Brennan. "Bones," He said, forcing himself to speak at a normal volume. Her gaze met his, and in that moment, she knew.  
She just _knew._


	4. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

"It's just through here. A bunch of teenagers found it, 'bout an hour ago." Their path was dimly lit, the night sky barely visible through the canopy of trees with their dense leaves bathed in the soft glow of moonlight.

"Any of these kids happen to stick around?" The sheriff snorted at Booth's question.

"Yeah, right. Bet half their parents don't even know their kids ain't in the house. This is their usual spot; they get together and drink and smoke, get up to no good. But," Sheriff Buckley paused to lift the bright yellow crime scene tape, ushering Booth and Brennan through. "Doubt any of 'em will be coming around after this." In the large clearing ahead of the trio, littered with beer cans and cigarette butts, the beams of a dozen torches swept the perimeter.

"Has anyone gotten close to the body?" Bones asked as she rifled through her field kit for a fresh pair of gloves.

"Can't speak for the kids, mind, but none of my men came near. I got within maybe six feet, confirmed the body was human. After that, we kept a wide berth." Booth smirked, knowing Bones would be pleased to have her evidence contaminated as little as possible.

"What do you think Bones?" He asked, taking a step closer to peer at the slightly gelatinous remains in front of him. "Connected to the first body?" Brennan tilted her head to one side.

"It's a female. Mid thirties. Not so much trauma to the body this time, but it's certainly a-"

"Don't tell me it's a possibility, alright Bones? Gun to your head, are they connected?" She looked up at him, her piercing eyes seeming to analyse him. He knew how much she hated this sort of question, and was surprised when she deigned to give him an answer.

"In my opinion, and with all my years of experience," She sighed, turning to face the body once more. "They are connected. The victims were bound the same way, they are of the same sex and similar ages, they both have almost-" She leaned closer to the remains, shining the torch over the sternum. "The _same_ fractures." Her voice trailed away.

"What's up, Bones?"

"We need to get the body to the Jeffersonian as soon as we can; as _soon_ as any insects and particles have been collected."

"Did you find something?" He asked, not daring to hope.

"Maybe. Something... Disturbing.

* * *

Booth was glad to be back at the lab, despite the fluorescent lights that caused his tired eyes to ache.

"Just what I thought." Bones murmured, her magnification goggles obscuring her eyes. "Here Zack, take a look." Her apprentice hovered the microscope over the sites his boss pointed to.

"Ribs seven through ten are all fractured, just like before." Zack exclaimed, equally pensive. Booth snapped his fingers at them impatiently, a little exasperated.

"English, okay? Not Squint Speak." It was Bones who elaborated, the goggles now pushed up to rest on her forehead.

"There are twelve ribs on each side. Two of them, the eleventh and twelfth, are called floating ribs, as they are only connected to the vertebrae. The eighth, ninth, and tenth ribs -these are all fractured- are called false ribs. They aren't directly attached to the sternum, but to the seventh rib by cartilage. The victim has had all of her false ribs broken. The first to the seventh are known as true ribs, as they are directly attached to the sternum. Of these, only the seventh is fractured. The last true rib."

"Okay, so what's the significance?" Bones shrugged.

"I'm not sure. The break on the ninth rib is worse than the others. Zack, was this true with the first victim?" There was a moment of silence.

"Yes, except it was Julie Hill's tenth rib."

"And those are both false?" Bones nodded, her expression grim.

"That's correct. I don't know what it means, but it could mean something." Booth was inclined to agree, and it made him uneasy. He got the feeling that, whatever this was, it was something sinister.

* * *

Her name was Valerie Denton, and she had been thirty six years old. She was the sole owner of a tobacco plant out in Virginia, just a dozen miles from where they'd found her body in the Baltimore woods. In contrast with the first victim, there seemed to be plenty of people who had motive to hurt her. She had also been relatively alone in the world, but the isolation had caused her to become bitter and angry. She had a keen eye for business, according to her colleagues, but lacked any normal social paradigm.  
Booth could see a pattern emerging; a dangerous framework of what drew these women to the killer's eye. They'd both been brunettes, successful, and were both solitary enough that no-one had _really_ looked for them when they'd disappeared. They needed a big break so badly at this point. The killer was speeding away from his grasp, leaving a whirlwind of torment and pain in his wake.  
He'd started for home after a few hours of following up useless leads. He'd spoken to several disgruntled employees of Denton's, and to the closest friend of Dr. Hill's. None of them had been forthcoming with case-breaking details, and when it was approaching dusk, he turned for home. He'd been a couple of blocks away when he turned the car around, instead heading for Bones' apartment. He knew she'd gone home after some gentle persuasion from Angela, laden with the case file and a desperation to learn more. After a quick detour to pick up their usual order from Wong Fu's, he was at her door within thirty minutes. She'd smiled when she'd looked through the spyhole to see her partner armed with Chinese, and opened the door.

"Wanna talk through the case?" Was Booth's greeting. He noticed that her dark hair was wet, and tumbling down to her shoulders in dark strands. She smelled of jasmine, her skin still damp and flushed from her shower. Dressed in a loose plaid shirt and her usual jeans, she looked natural and beautiful, and he felt an unexpected warmth in his chest.  
Booth stretched out on the sofa while Bones curled up in an armchair, laughing at his attempts to use chopsticks. He may have played it up a little just to hear her laugh, get a glimpse of her pearly white teeth when she bared them in a smile. They talked about the case, pausing only for a bite of chow mein or a drink of beer.

"He's a real nut-job, this one. Stalking all those women, choosing them for their success in life, their hair, their friends- I mean, who does that?"

"Psychopaths." She answered seriously.

"It was a rhetorical question, Bones. And I thought you hated psychology?"

"I do, but there's a difference between psychology and brain anatomy, Booth. Research has shown that individuals with psychopathy have reduced activity in the orbital cortex."

"The what in the what, now?" She leaned forward, now in full Squint mode.

"The orbital cortex. It's thought to play a role in regulating our emotions, impulses, _and_ our morality and aggression. If the killer is a psychopath, he may feel he is doing no wrong." Booth's expression moulded into one of exasperated disbelief.

"What, and the fact that the FBI and a team of forensic experts chasing him doesn't give him a clue?"

"Psychopaths often suffer delusions of grandeur; they think they're smarter or better than everyone else." Booth scoffed.

"Yeah, sounds just like someone I know." It took a couple of moments for Bones to comprehend the insinuation, and when the realisation hit she looked a little wounded.

"I am _not_ a psychopath." He suddenly felt a twinge of guilt. He knew that Bones didn't mean to make other people inferior. She wasn't delusional, he knew that, she was just honest.

"C'mon, Bones. I was just kidding; I know you're not a psychopath." She stared at him a moment, as if she was trying to discern his sincerity, and then nodded, apparently having been appeased.

"So what's our next move?" Booth blew out a breath of air slowly, pushing his empty food carton to the middle of the coffee table.

"I followed up leads all day today, and to be honest I'm at a dead-end on my side until the Squints come up with something." Bones' cell started ringing, as if Booth had somehow summoned it. She answered the call immediately, and he sat at the edge of the sofa, hands clasped with bated breath as Brennan listened intently to the speaker.

"And that's congruent with the second body? Mm hm. Okay, thanks Hodgins. Good work." She snapped the cell shut, staring at Booth was a touch of confusion in her eyes.

"So? What is it?"

"Hodgins managed to find out what that second substance was with the chloroform the killer used to incapacitate the victims. It was denatured snake venom." A moment passed as he processed this new information.

"Snake venom?" His tone was incredulous.

"Yes. Most likely from a spitting cobra of some kind. The bleach used to make the chloroform seems to have denatured the venom, which could be why Cam found no evidence of it in the tissue." He leaned back with a sigh, not able to resist the urge of a weak smile. This was something. There had to be significance in this.

"You know what, Bones? I think it's time we paid old Gordon Gordon a visit."

* * *

The next morning, as Gordon Wyatt set three cups of the table and bustled around with a plate of biscuits and a little dish of sugar, Booth and Brennan spoke in turn to outline the case.

"Milk jug, milk jug... There you are, you little rascal!" Booth, who had just gotten to the snake venom part, let his sentence trail off.

"Are you even listening?"

"What? Well of course I am!" Wyatt sat easily on one of the barstools, and set about pouring cups of coffee. "You are looking for a psychopathic, predatory stalker whose two main passions in life are successful women and lethal snakes. Yes, it's all very interesting." Booth and Bones exchanged a glance.

"You wanna enlighten us there, Doc?" Gordon set the cafetière down with a somewhat impatient sigh.

"He clearly thinks very highly of himself. He has chosen beautiful, ambitious women, befouled them, and dumped their naked bodies in areas that he knows will get them discovered. That sort of arrogance tends to only accompany those with great delusions of-"

"Grandeur, we know. Me and Bones already covered this." Brennan leaned forward.

"We were hoping you could tell us more about the significance of the snakes, Dr. Wyatt." She confessed, meeting his gaze.

"You want me to skip straight to the exciting part, eh? Very well, then. What might a sexually motivated stalker feel he and snakes share in common?"

"They're both predators."

"Very good, Agent Booth. They are both nearing the top of the food chain. You believe the venom to be from a spitting cobra?" Booth and Brennan both nodded, edging to the edges of their seats with shared clenched jaws. Wyatt smiled at their shared movements. "Cobras are often very highly regarded spiritually. In Hinduism, they are the manifestation of Shiva- the God of destruction and regeneration. There is an annual lunar holiday by the name of Nag Panchami, in which the Hindus refrain from plowing and field work out of respect for the serpents. In Buddhism, it is believed that a monstrously sized cobra protected Buddha from the sun while he meditated. Do you, as you Yanks so quaintly phrase it, 'catch my drift'?" Brennan sat back.

"He thinks of himself as a deity?"

"Precisely, Dr. Brennan." Booth cracked his knuckles out of frustration.

"So the guy handles snakes. Maybe he uses the same gloves for that as he did for making the chloroform?" Gordon took a sip of his coffee, resting his teaspoon on the saucer with a gentle _clink_.

"Or have you perhaps considered that it was his whim for the venom to be discovered?"

"His _whim_? Why?"

"To this man's dangerous mind, he is a god. I expect he thinks it's time that everybody else thinks so too."

* * *

"Alright, thanks." Booth slid his cellphone back into his jacket pocket with one hand, the other resting on the wheel of his SUV. Bones watched him expectantly as the car waited in traffic at the intersection. "It's illegal to keep any venomous snake in DC, Virginia, or Maryland but get this; the Virginia Aquarium has a spitting cobra in one of it's exhibitions. This smells like a lead to me." She returned his optimistic smile with one of her own.

"Is your gut speaking to you again, Booth?"

"Sure as hell is, Bones. Sure as hell is."

* * *

The whole of the aquarium glowed with a soft teal hue, and smelled faintly of raw fish. Booth flashed his badge at the bemused girl behind the ticket counter. The teenager had been chewing absent-mindedly on a piece of gum, and her mouth dropped open in surprise when she laid eyes on the FBI Agent. He told her to have the manager find them in the reptile exhibition, met with a non-committal shrug. Bones followed him as he studied the map of attractions he'd picked up from the kiosk, and set off through the winding corridors.

"Do you think Parker would like this place?" She asked, her head tilted to one side as they caught glimpses of brightly coloured fish and tranquil manta rays.

"Huh?" He glanced around. "Yeah, probably. I mean, he loves the zoo. Here's the reptile section." He indicated a door ahead of them, decorated with paintings of tree trunks entwined by cartoon-ish looking snakes and a grossly disproportional leopard gecko holding a sign that read 'Reptile World'. As soon as they entered the room, Bones crossed to the largest exhibit.

"Black-necked spitting cobra, or _Naja nigricollis._ " She read from the plaque next to the snake's enclosure, perfecting the Latin pronunciation. "They originate from Africa. They have a lifespan of up to twenty years and can grow to be ten feet long." Booth let out a low whistle.

"Geez, this thing must be at _least_ six. That's not the last sight you wanna see on God's green earth, right?" She pondered this for a moment.

"No, I suppose not." She decided finally, crouching down to get a better look at the beast. It was curled in a long heap at the back of it's enclosure, head raised to stare at his intruders. Suddenly, it opened it's mouth wide and hissed loudly, both of them starting at the unexpected aggression.

"Thing of beauty, isn't she?" Booth helped Bones to her feet, then turned to the man who'd appeared behind them. He introduced himself as Arnold Beckett- the manager of the aquarium. "Don't worry about the hissing," He told them as he shook their hands, smiling at each of them in turn. "She's had her venom glands removed."

"Isn't that inhumane?" Bones asked, pulling her hand away a tad sharper than was necessary. Beckett looked at her oddly for a moment.

"She has no use for her venom, anymore, Ms...?"

"This is _Dr._ Temperance Brennan, sir. I'm Special Agent Seeley Booth; we're partners on a murder investigation." The manager raised an eyebrow.

"I can assure you that none of my reptiles have murdered anyone recently, Mr. Booth. They are incapable of doing so, for a start." Neither of them smiled at his poor attempt at humour.

"Actually, we're looking into the rape and murder of two women by a _human_ , Mr. Beckett." Bones spoke coldly. She wasn't sure why, but she instinctively disliked this man. A glance at her partner told her that Booth felt the same. Beckett had the grace to look ashamed, at least.

"We found traces of cobra venom in their remains." Booth explained.

"Yes, and as I shall explain to you for a _third_ time, all venomous reptiles have had their glands removed. It is a requirement for any dangerous animal in my aquarium to have any risks evaluated and steps taken to reduce them." Booth sighed.

"Alright, so what can you tell me about this snake?" He asked with a sigh, indicating the spitting cobra. The snake had settled down somewhat, but continued to watch them through pitch-black eyes.

"I'm afraid that I don't specialise in reptiles, Mr. Booth, but I _can_ ask the assistant curator to talk you through any questions you might have."

"No, see you misunderstand me. We're not here for an anatomy lesson, Mr. Beckett. We need to know everything there is to know about _this particular_ snake. Where it came from, who handles it, that kind of thing." Beckett had an impatient, frustrated air about him.

"Fine. I'll need to speak to the curator, but he is currently on his annual leave. Can you return in eight weeks?" Booth could hardly believe what he was hearing. He and Bones exchanged another glance. It said, ' _What kind of idiot is this guy?'._

* * *

"Do you think we've found the murderer?" Brennan asked, her tone slightly breathless as though she had just engaged in strenuous exercise. Booth understood; whenever they got a suspect in a particularly difficult case, the pressure could sometimes make his chest feel tight.  
The assistant curator, a nervous type with glasses that seemed too big for his face, had told the pair that the black-necked cobra -named Empress by the staff- had been pregnant when she'd arrived from another zoo in Nigeria. The head curator, Chase Ophion, had told the other departmental members that he had not been aware of this, and that he would send the eggs back to Nigeria as soon as the snake delivered them. They'd sent six by exotic animal courier, which the assistant curator had seemed to find a little odd. He'd elaborated by saying that usually they would expect a black-necked spitting cobra to deliver at least eight young. He had 'assured' Booth and Brennan that Ophion had been present during the whole delivery process, even shutting down the reptile attraction so the snake could lay her eggs in peace, even only allowing the other members of staff back into the department when the process was complete.

"Ophion has _got_ to have something to do with this," Booth insisted, gripping the wheel tightly as they sped back to the Jeffersonian. "No doubt about it. I'll have 'em run a background check, we'll go pick this guy up, and squeeze his balls in a vice until he talks." Brennan's nose crinkled at his choice of words.

"Ouch." Was her only comment.

"Yeah, ouch." He agreed.

* * *

 **A/N:** Okay, so I don't know how snakes came around, I really don't. It popped into my head somehow and somehow I ended up researching different kinds of serpent and mythology for three hours. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it, thanks for the reviews. If you are reading this and enjoying this (or even if you aren't enjoying it), please do leave a comment. It doesn't take long and it really makes my day!


	5. Chapter Four

**A/N:** I hope no one 'out there' is watching me (I sound like Hodgins haha), because research for this fic is probably giving concern for my internet history right about now. Some of the science is going way over my head, but I _think_ I've gotten it right. I hope you all have a good day, and enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter Four**

 **THE COBRA KILLER: Are your loved ones at stake?**

 **By Casey Brookes**

A sense of widespread panic is in full force after it was revealed yesterday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is currently making inquiries into the savage rape and murder of two women from the region of Maryland and Virginia.  
The victims, named last night as Julie Hill and Valerie Denton, both of whom were in their thirties, were separately abducted and allegedly held for a ten day period before their brutalized bodies were dumped almost seventy-five miles apart. A team of forensic experts at the Jeffersonian Institute found trace evidence to suggest that the murderer used the venom of a dangerous African cobra to kill his victims.  
According to an anonymous source, the murderer has been linked to at least a dozen rapes and murders over the past decade, and it is the belief of the authorities that he will strike again.

"I can confirm that we are currently investigating the murder of two women in association with the Jeffersonian Institute," Said an official FBI spokesperson. "The Bureau is making inquiries with reptile specialists, and we are optimistic that the perpetrator will soon be caught. At this time, we ask all citizens to exercise caution. We advise that you do not travel alone, particularly at night, and anyone who feels they have relevant information pertaining to the case is urged to call the anonymous tip line." The Jeffersonian Institute has declined to comment at this time.

* * *

The article continued with a brief paragraph about each victim, and ended with a disparaging opinion from the journalist herself that the FBI had no 'real' evidence, and that they were chasing their tails in an effort to keep up with the murderer. Booth was furious. His knuckles were white as they gripped the steering wheel of his SUV, his face flushed as he stared grimly at the road ahead. His heart pounded in his chest and he couldn't resist another glance at the newspaper article lying on the passenger seat beside him. Somewhere along the line, there had been a leak. It could have been at the Jeffersonian, or the FBI, or even the killer himself who had tipped off the press; but it did not bode well. Booth disliked journalists on principal, and he particularly had a bone of contention with Casey Brookes. She was comparable to a rottweiler in the way that she bulldozed after leads like a dog after a bone. She had a tenacious attitude that left her readers either appalled at her wild theories, or clamoring to know more. As far as Booth knew, there had been no 'widespread panic' until Brookes had created it.  
He knew his boss would be majorly pissed off with him; as if he didn't have quite enough to contend with. The sooner he and Bones tracked down this Ophion guy down, the better. He couldn't wait to wash his hands of this case, although it wouldn't make much difference to Casey Brookes. To her, the FBI would always be incompetent, and murder would only ever be in her interest. Without the 'Cobra Killer', as he would surely now be dubbed, Brookes had no story to tell. It was definitely preferable that way.

"Please just tell me you found something." It was more of a statement of his growing desperation than a question. He slapped the newspaper on the evidence table on the main platform at the lab, and the Squints all glanced at it.

"Angela was just telling us about the article," Bones told him, her expression equally as bleak. "And yes, we have found something."

"You have?"

"Yes. Arsenic." It was Cam that spoke. "I found arsenic in the remaining tissue of Valerie Denton."

"She was poisoned? Jeez, what is it about this guy and his love for all things toxic?" He thought for a moment. "I thought your findings were that Valerie bled out like the first victim?"

"They were, and she did." Zack said, pointing to Denton's remains. Booth presumed that he was indicating some evidence that the Squints could see and he couldn't.

"Yes, it appears that she was poisoned shortly before the trauma to the veins. Even with that amount of blood loss, she couldn't have survived the chemicals. Arsenic poisoning is supposed to be very painful." Bones observed, her eyes full to the brim with pity for the victim and anger for the man who had caused her suffering.

"Why is this woman different to the last? Julie had her bones broken, Valerie was given a lethal dose of poison- why?"

"I don't-" Angela placed a hand on Brennan's shoulder.

"I don't think Booth was asking you, sweetie."

* * *

The man was having trouble suppressing the blinding fury that had struck him squarely in the chest when he'd read the article. He could hardly remember the last time he'd been so angry, but he knew it had ended with his clothes being soaked in blood that wasn't his own, and having to flee the state to escape a murder charge. He had worked tirelessly, for years, to keep his innate feelings of rage well concealed. If he didn't calm down, everything he had been working towards could be ruined.  
He paced back and forth like a caged lion, staring up at all the research he'd done on his third victim. She was a defense lawyer, which he'd found highly amusing, but sometimes it was more important to send a message than complete the original plan. Once he calmed down, he would be more rational. He would make a decision.

It hadn't been easy, putting his plan into place. There had been times where he hadn't eaten or slept in days, so heavy was the burden of his responsibilities. He'd become used to being known as Chase Ophion, a man with a carefully constructed life; forced to interact with the clueless and mundane citizens on a day-to-day basis for his job. And he was about to tear it all down. It had been worth the strain, however, when Empress had laid nine beautiful eggs, perfectly ovoid and porcelain in colour. It had been a wrench to leave six of them behind, but the imbeciles he worked alongside would eventually have realised that something was amiss. He had calculated that the maximum number he could take without a high level of risk occurring was three. So he had chosen the ones he felt most drawn to, and cared for them with the greatest respect. And then he had waited, almost on tenterhooks, for sixty five days until they hatched. Two females and a male. The females he named Wadget for the Egyptian deity who takes the form of a cobra, and Tiamat, a primeval sea dragon goddess who was believed to be the embodiment of chaos and mother to the first gods. To the male, he gave the name Samael. In Jewish mythology, it was the name of an archangel, a fallen angel, the Angel of Death or Poison, the accuser, seducer, and destroyer- better known as the Grim Reaper. He was said to be both good and evil, having been one of the heavenly host. It was also believed that he ruled over seven habitations called Sheba Ha-yechaloth, the infernal realms of the Earth. The man could believe that.

He felt as proud of Wadjet, Tiamat, and Samael as any father would gazing upon the face of his first-born baby. If he had been capable of feeling love, he was sure he would feel it for his three cobra children, whom he had tended and cared for and who were already almost two feet long.

He went to them now, and found Samael watching him intently. He stared back into the onyx-black pools of havoc.

"Not long now, my little prince. Not long."

* * *

The sky, only recently a dome of endless blue, was now overtaken by dense clouds that were slate in colour. The rain had an ambient temperature to it, a springtime salute as mother nature reached out to care for her children- the parched earth, the flowers that bloomed, the migrating fish that sought a home in the soft embrace unfurled by the first season, the birth season.  
Booth felt as though the weather reflected his current mood, as though natural forces had reached inside of him, and this was what had emerged. Blue skies dampened with rain clouds, droplets of water dripping from every surface, from the leaves of trees to the delicate petals of newly arisen daffodils. It was a mosaic, a hidden opuscule performed by the impinging flurry, a beautiful painting left unsigned by the artist.

"You know, Frances Hodgson Burnett described the spring as the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine." Bones told him, her chestnut hair beginning to shine with tiny beads of water.

"He got that one right." Booth sighed as he looked around. "At least the ducks at the park will enjoy it, huh?"

"On the contrary; if their pond overflows it could-"

"I was kidding, Bones." At the end of a narrow lane, surrounded by overgrowing weeds and a tall wooden fence, a small house stood. The wood paneling on the exterior was fading, the green paint covering the front door chipped, but otherwise it looked relatively well maintained. ' _A serial killer could live here.'_ Booth reminded himself as he reached for his gun. They had a warrant to examine the property, which they would execute whether they found Ophion or not. It had already taken several days to find the place. Apparently, the small house had belonged to some old woman who'd had no one to leave it to once she passed away. It had gone for auction, and had been bought by a developer. The guy had told them that a 'mysterious dude' had offered to pay him three times as much for the land as he'd bought it for. When Bones had showed him Ophion's ID card for the aquarium, the developer had confirmed him to be the same 'mysterious dude'.  
He gave three loud knocks on the door with the knuckles of his left hand, the right grasping his glock. There was no answer, which he had expected, so he repeated the motion once more. "Look for a key, I'll watch your back." He told his partner, waiting a few steps behind him.

"Do you think someone as cautious as Ophion would leave a spare key lying around?" She asked as she lifted empty plant pots to look underneath. She had a point, Booth conceded.

"You're probably right." He gave her a few more seconds to look, and then kicked the door with the flat of his foot until it caved in. He entered first, his gun cocked as they moved silently down the corridor. He could tell from the shadow on the wall beside him that Bones had taken her own gun from her purse. He hadn't expected anything less but still rolled his eyes.  
The silence that filled the empty spaces was telling. Booth could sense the lack of another presence. No one else was here.  
The carpet and wallpaper were both dated, covered in floral patterns of muted orange, brown and yellow. Brennan ran a finger through a distinct layer of dust covering the oaken telephone table in one corner, rubbing her first and second fingers together as if she was analysing the isotopes of the fine particles.

"It needs cleaning." She observed.

"The guy's a serial rapist-stalker-killer and you're worried about how clean his house is?" Booth scoffed, clicking his tongue as his eyes ran over the hallways. "Talk about messed up priorities." Bones shook her head, her eyes wide and marble grey in the half-light of the sodden sunshine.

"No, it's almost as if..." She let her sentence hang in mid-air, unfinished, as she suddenly surged forward.

"Bones! Hey!" Booth hissed. He was sure the house was empty apart from the two of them, but that didn't mean his partner's safety wasn't at risk. He followed her straight through the open arch to the kitchen, where she started opening cupboards at random and peering in.

"What the hell are you doing, Bones? We talked about this; the gun _always_ goes first." Having found the cupboard she was looking for, she stepped aside, her gaze intense as it lingered on Booth's. He glanced at the dozens of plastic bottles inside.

"Cleaning chemicals- so what? We know he stole them from the aquarium to make his own chloroform. Hodgins thinks he even used them to extract arsenic from fertiliser that he imported illegally from Mexico." They had only just learned this. Apparently there was a way to get deadly poison using a microwave oven, acid, and shit. Go figure.  
Brennan looked exasperated, sifting through her mind for words that could make Booth see what she did.

"No, we _know_ he uses bleach, acetone and hydrochloric acid. What we don't know is what he uses these for." She indicated the numerous containers of well known cleaning brands – for the kitchen, bathroom, windows, floors. Everything a person could ever want for a spick-and-span home. Booth shifted uncomfortably, letting the majority of his weight fall on one leg and then the other. He didn't particularly like where this was headed.

"Well, for cleaning I guess."

"Exactly, _cleaning_." She said pointedly, looking a little triumphant. The penny dropped.

"He hasn't been here in weeks." He said, unnecessarily. "Must've known we'd find this place- you think maybe he's playing with us again?" She shrugged non-committally, and he left her to her cleaning products and headed through to the living room.  
The first thing that struck him was that the black leather sofa looked oddly inappropriate here- it was probably the only modern piece of furniture in the whole house. It was then he realised that it was the only piece of furniture in this room, _period,_ as if to emphasise the importance of it's modernity. It was only when he flicked the switch on the wall that Booth realised how insignificant the sofa really was. As light filled the room with a soft, warm glow that seemed very out of place, he stopped dead in his tracks. Of the four walls, two were covered with photographs, news articles, and sheets of notebook paper with writing scrawled all over them. One looked as though it had been torn down in a hurry and the evidence taken with it, while the fourth was completely clear apart from a single sheet of paper with a large question mark drawn on it. For a moment, he stared, wide-eyed at the spectacle. "Uh, Bones?" He called, stepping closer to the decorated walls. The photos, he realised with a jolt, were of his first two victims. Julie Hill's wall included papers she'd written for medical journals, while Denton's featured a couple of articles about the tobacco plant. There were hand-written schedules of their work patterns, names of friends and co-workers, every little component of their lives scrutinised and studied. Booth heard his partner's sharp intake of breath as she joined him in the room.

"What is this?" She headed to the wall that'd had the paper torn down, and picked a stubborn piece of paper from a piece of blu-tack with a gloved hand. She peered, brows furrowed in concentration, at the few words that had survived the reaping. "I think it's a newspaper article. I'll get Angela to see if she can get anything from it when we're back at the lab." Booth nodded, although he was only half listening. He was preoccupied with staring into the faces of Hill and Denton. The portraits looked to have been taken from quite a distance, which was a normal MO for a stalker. It was clear that Ophion had done this before. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach, and turned away.

"I'll have forensics do a sweep." He left the room quickly muttering about needing fresh air. They both knew that what he really needed was for them to catch this guy.

* * *

"I managed to pull some words from the scrap of paper you found." Angela pressed a few buttons on her tablet. "Hodgins analysed the chemical contents and found that the ink used to print this article was made from soybeans; so I cross-referenced the words with papers in the local areas that use soy ink- this was what came up. It's the Washington Echo." An article appeared on the monitor, and Booth and Brennan stepped towards it. "It's about a defense lawyer- y'know, the one that helped get that drug kingpin off of four murder charges."

"Charlotte Kennedy," Booth murmured. "Is this his next victim?" The urgency in his tone was badly disguised.

"It's possible. But why did he tear everything down on her wall and not on Julie's of Valerie's?" Angela looked between the two, trying to gauge what their internal dialogue was saying.

"Maybe he changed his mind?" She offered. They both stared at her, and then each other.

"You don't think...?" Booth nodded grimly.

"I do think." They turned as one, and stormed away.

"You're welcome, sweetie!" She called after them, a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips.

Booth put out a BOLO, Brennan called the Washington Echo offices.

"Brookes hasn't been to work ever since after she published the article," She told him once she'd hung up. Her eyes had been rounded by fear and tension. "The murderer could already have her."

"What? And they didn't report it?" She shook her head, equally as exasperated as he was.

"Apparently she used to disappear for days at a time when she was researching new articles, following leads."

"Oh, great! A couple of uniforms are gonna do a welfare check on Kennedy, maybe suggest she leaves town for a while. We'll head to Brookes' place." Brennan felt a heavy weight sink into her stomach. Statistically, the odds didn't look too good.

* * *

 **A/N:** Firstly, a big thank you to everyone who reviewed. And now for a bit of blackmail! I am now three chapters ahead. If I get five reviews on this chapter, I promise I'll put the next chapter up sooner, rather than in a week. It's not too much to ask, but I'd really appreciate it!


	6. Chapter Five

**A/N:** Thank you all for the reviews! I actually was going to post this yesterday, but I haven't been very well, and when you have a chronic illness even a cold has a way of knocking you arse over tit! (Excuse my French). Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

* * *

 **Chapter Five**

Every lead had crumbled away to ash at their fingertips. Every angle had given in to the crushing weight of scientific explanation with no yield to speak of.

And they'd found Casey Brookes' body, in a ditch, twelve days after her disappearance. She had been different in appearance, Booth observed, from the other victims. She'd had short, auburn hair and hazel eyes, had worn copious amounts of make-up, and her toenails, which were now chipped and faded, had once been attentively painted crimson red. The same could be assumed, but not confirmed, that the fingernails had been the same- simply because she didn't seem to possess any. All of her phalanges had been severed at the proximal inter-phalangeal joint – the second joint - perimorterm. Just before death.  
Since there had been limited insect and wild animal activity, there was enough flesh for Cam to do an autopsy. She'd said that death would have come quickly for Brookes, once her veins had been pierced, due to the combined blood loss. She had likely exsanguinated faster than Hill and Denton. A very, very small mercy.  
Booth and the squints all felt the burden of responsibility on their shoulders. They'd had several days to find and rescue Casey, but the killer was so meticulous and careful in his crime that they;d found nothing to go on.  
It hadn't been her fault, Booth admitted to himself, that she'd been taken. She was just doing her job, where he'd failed to do his.

"If we're gonna catch this bastard, it'll be this kill that points us in his direction." Booth spoke to no one in particular. Brennan was hovering over Cam's shoulders, waiting for her to finish her autopsy so Zack could start cleaning the bones. Angela, preferring the remains of their victims to be in clean skeletal form, was standing a few feet away, also waiting on Cam.

"What makes you think that?" Bones asked, her gaze still fixed in silent scrutiny as she observed her boss working on the body.

"Dr. Brennan, you standing over my shoulder isn't going to make this autopsy go any faster. Why don't you take a look at those x-rays?" Cam was trying to be diplomatic, Booth knew. They'd both noticed that his partner was more tightly wound over this case than usual. Perhaps because they usually caught their murderer after the first kill.

"The guy's just so cautious, y'know?" But he probably read the article, got pissed off at what Brookes wrote about him, and changed his mind about going after Charlotte Kennedy. He was following his _emotions_ , not rational thought."

"Let's hope you're right." Cam sighed as she peeled back a layer of skin.

"What is it, sweetie?" Angela had reached out and gently touched Brennan's arm. Everyone turned towards her, holding a sheet of x-ray film in her hand, head to one side as she stared at the image of the victim's sternum. She seemed to come back to reality suddenly, blinking as she looked up at them.

"The _eight_ rib is more severely fractured." She murmured. Angela groaned, her face creasing in grim expectancy.

"Oh, don't tell me, that means something big."

"Yes, I believe so." She attached the sheet to the brightly lit board attached to the wall of the auxiliary room. "There have been four fractured ribs on each victim. They each had one that was more severely broken than the others. Julie's was the tenth, Valerie's the ninth, Casey's the-"

"There's gonna be another victim." Booth's chest was tight, and his windpipe felt constricted.

"That's what I was getting to, yes."

"Is that you jumping to conclusions, Dr. Brennan?" Cam asked, one delicately shaped eyebrow raised.

"No that's me, feeling a sense of urgency to find the man who tortured, raped and murdered three women before he takes a fourth, and using consistent evidence to surmise a-" Cam raised her hands in defeat.

"Point taken. I'd better get this autopsy over and done with."

"I believe that would be the best course of action, yes." Bones turned to Angela. "Do you think you could work with Zack to find the weapon that severed Casey's phalanges?" Her nodded.

"Of course. I'll text you when we find something." Booth's cell began ringing, and he answered as soon as he'd fished it from his pocket. He feared the worst, that the fourth body had been found already, and felt a little weak with relief when the operator on the other end of the line told him that two of the victims' cars had been found just a few miles apart, plates removed and partly concealed by undergrowth.

Once the dump sites had been investigated with a fine-toothed comb by forensics, and the cars towed to the Jeffersonian, the lab was a flurry of activity. Hodgins had come bounding into the auxiliary room with news that at each site, the same dried dirt had been found on the wheels of the cars. He was analysing it now, as Angela used the tire tracks of the mystery car to search for the make, which would hopefully give some clue as to the model of the car if they were lucky. Forensics had found strands of hair in the trunks of the vehicles that belonged to their owners, and CCTV was being traced for the route the murderer had most likely taken between abducting his victims to discarding their cars and transferring to what was presumably his own.

"If there was the same type of dirt on the car wheels, that's gotta mean that he takes the victims to his kill spot _before_ he gets rid of them. Maybe to keep them contained, make it less likely he'll get caught with women tied up in the back." Booth said, running the theory over his tongue and deciding he liked taste of it. "If Hodgins can narrow down where it came from, maybe we'll find the place." Brennan had finally gotten her bones, and the skeleton of Casey Brookes was laid out in front of her. She looked at him.

"I hope so." Her voice was soft, and without her usual objective tone and scientific reasoning.

They all worked until late at night, and only when Angela, exhausted, fell asleep at her desk did Cam start pushing them all towards home.

"Go, all of you." She commanded, her tone kind but firm. "If we want to catch the killer, we have to keep our minds sharp. I want everyone to have food, a shower, and sleep." In the end, Booth had dragged Bones away by her arm, promising her that they'd work non-stop starting the next morning until they caught the guy.

* * *

The curtains in Temperance's bedroom were slightly parted, soaking part of the room in gentle moonlight. The air outside her window was filled with the stillness and quiet that only accompanied the few short hours between total darkness and sunrise.

In the glow, the man had been watching her for several minutes, as her chest rose and fell under her pale blue t-shirt. He wondered if it matched her eyes. He hoped so. He felt he could probably pick out her beautiful orbs from a hundred pairs, with their gradient of grey, blue, and green.  
He allowed himself a few more seconds to observe before he moved forward, silent footsteps leading to her bedside. She was relaxed in sleep, her features at peace, limbs curled slightly inward with one fist tucked underneath her chin. The man's gaze slipped to his pocket as he took something out.

She wasn't sure what had woken her, but she knew immediately that she must keep her eyelids tightly shut until she had evaluated her situation. The hairs on the back of her neck had prickled- she could feel someone watching her. Absurdly, for a moment she could only think about how the apparent phenomena was likely caused by a system in the brain devoted to where other people's eyes lingered. It was thought that certain cells are triggered by someone staring directly at you, but incredibly, not if they were looking just a few degrees in another direction.  
She forced herself to tune back into the situation- she had never been a daydreamer, and this was no place to start. She heard the almost imperceptible sloshing of liquid in a bottle, and only then did the realisation hit her. She needed to act, fast. Opening her eyes just a crack, she could see she'd made the decision a millisecond too late. The hand holding the rag was just about to connect with her face. She twisted violently, kicking out at the man with bare feet, clamping her lips tightly shut and holding her breath against the sickeningly sweet smell of chloroform. She desperately rolled away and out of his clutches, grasping at her cell phone and pressing the keys with fumbling hands until she found the speed-dial for Booth. She kept the phone to her chest, barely upright and beginning to feel a trace of light-headedness from the trace amount of liquid she had inhaled. She reached behind her for the alarm clock, and threw it with force at the attacker, who was advancing on her, blocking her exit. He barely had to step aside to avoid the badly aimed assault, and in a heartbeat he was upon her again. She brought her arms up to protect herself, bringing her foot around in an arc to connect with the man's stomach. He'd apparently been expecting this; he caught her by the ankle with the reflexes of a viper, twisting her leg and putting her off balance. The air was knocked from her body as she crumpled to the floor. Her temple connected with the wooden corner of the table, but through the wave of dizziness she used her other foot to hit the spot she'd previously missed. The man let go of her with a grunt as he too was winded, and she used the slight, involuntary relaxing of his hand on her shin to pull viciously from his grip and spring back to her feet and across the bed. The adrenaline had kicked in, and it had made her as fast as the man attacking her. He was clearly becoming frustrated. He lunged for her again, hand closing around her throat. She reached for his head, tearing out a clump of his dark hair and throwing it away from her. The strands slowly drifted towards her white bedsheets, and as she began to gasp for breath she realised that he had closed the gap between them. Using the pressure on her throat, he had her pinned to the wall, his forearm against her neck and choking her. He took the cell phone from her fist, her hold loosened by the distraction of not being able to breathe. He disconnected the call before Booth had a chance to pick up, and threw it against the wall, feeling satisfied as it smashed into several, useless pieces. Before she had a chance to regain some composure, his spare hand grabbed wildly inside his coat pockets until his fingers closed once again around the rag. In one swift motion he wrenched her away from the wall and pulled her body close to his own, her back against his front. He felt her shoulder roll free of the joint as he pulled a little too hard, heard her frightened, rasping squeak of shock and pain. A low, guttural growl escaped his lips, and he concentrated all his efforts on clamping the cloth around hers, slackening his grip on her neck. She had no other choice: she had to take a breath or pass out. Either way, she'd be down for the count. Her fingernails clawed futilely against the arm that pinned her body to his, suddenly going limp as she lost control of her body. Her head was swimming. The night was dark. She was falling unconscious. Ten days, and the clock starts now.

* * *

His cell had only trilled a few times before the call was disconnected, but it was just Booth's luck that it had woken him anyway. Groggy with tiredness, he switched his bedside lamp on, squinting through the brightness at his alarm clock. 4:02 am. He yawned, reaching for his cell and collapsing back into his pillows. One missed call, no voicemail left. Without giving it any thought, he was suddenly sitting bolt upright, staring at the glowing screen. Bones wouldn't call at this time for no reason, he was certain. He felt immediately uneasy, slightly nauseous as he pressed the button to ring her back, holding the phone to his ear. His breaths were coming fast and short, and he didn't dare to move.

' _The number you have dialled is not in service._ 'An automatic voice told him. He went cold all over, as though he'd sunken into the murky depths of an icy pond.

' _The number you have dialled is not in service_.' Slowly, mechanically, Booth snapped his cell shut. For the shortest of moments, he closed his eyes, willing his partner to be in front of him when he opened them once more. When that failed, he jumped to his feet, racing around this bedroom in his boxers to look for clothes. He thought about calling for back-up, but if his only evidence was a missed call, he'd most likely just be laughed at, and he didn't need the frustration right now. No, he would go to her apartment himself, red-light it in his car. She was fine, he told himself. Just fine.  
But the message was repeating itself over and over and over again in the back of his mind.

 _The number you have dialled is not in service. The number you have dialled is not in service. The number you have dialled is not in service._

* * *

The noise Booth emitted once he laid eyes on the bedroom had been almost inhuman. He'd found her front door closed, but unlocked- he hadn't bothered to knock. For the most part, everything seemed to be in its place. Tidy, well organised, clean. The bedroom door was open, and while his subconscious realised this to be odd, his thoughts were racing far too fast for him to process it then. He'd already drawn his gun, and he had it cocked as he stepped towards the threshold as quietly as he could. If there was anyone here, he was sure that his heart would give him away, it thumped so loudly in his chest. A quick sweep of the room told him what he needed to know- she wasn't here, and neither was anyone else. It took a moment for his eyes to see and his mind to accept the truths in front of him. The bed wasn't made. The sheets were tangled and in disarray. The lamp had fallen off the bedside table, the shade crumpled against the wall. Fragments of what looked like electronics lay at his feet. Numbly, and without really knowing what he was doing, he called it in. A unit was on the way, as was forensics. He called Cam next. When she answered, her voice was thick with broken sleep.

"Seeley?" For once, he didn't care about her use of his first name.

"She's gone." His voice was hoarse and tight, and he had to repeat himself again before she could understand what he'd said.

"Who?" She sounded more focused now. Booth imagined her sitting up in bed, phone clamped to her ear as he had done just a short while ago.

"He took her."

" _Who_ did?" Her voice was becoming more urgent by the second. He took a deep, shuddering breath before he could continue.

"Bones. He's got Bones." There was silence, and then-

"I'm coming. I'm- I'm on my way." He realised that the sun was beginning it's ascent through the sky, quietly bathing the room. It illuminated the bedside table. Booth saw the blood, and felt suddenly weak. He forced himself to take deep breaths, to think clearly. He pushed back at the anxiety, the fear, the horror of what he saw, pushed them to the back of his mind. There would be time to feel those emotions once he had her back. Right now, he could only focus on one thing- or perhaps, two. Finding his partner was the first, and taking down the bastard that abducted her and the other women the second. He had work to do.

* * *

 **A/N:** I didn't actually proofread this, so I hope it's okay. I'm still not feeling good but I did say I'd post this chapter early and I didn't want to go back on my word! Thank you all for reading it, have a wonderful day!


	7. Chapter Six

**A/N: I know I know I know, I'm officially an arsehole. I am one of those awful writers who loses momentum and then doesn't update anything for months on end, all the while feeling guilty and knowing I'd be majorly pissed off if I was reading a story that just disappeared. In my defense, I've been feeling like utter shit. It's incredibly hard trying to do all the research I was doing and then writing things that make sense when you have overwhelming nerve pain that starts at your hip and ends at the very tips of my sodding toes.**

 **Anywho, my laptop broke a while ago and I lost _everything_ I had for this story, which was pretty devastating in itself. This is what I could salvage. I absolutely, emphatically _cannot_ guarantee that there will be another update soon. I'm working on it, but as I said, I am an arsehole. So who knows when I'll actually get my shit together and finish this story.**

 **Enjoy all the same!**

* * *

 **Chapter Six**

Darkness had closed in, when she knew there should be light. She realised there was pain, and then that she was immobile, her wrists and ankles bound. Darkness, pain, bound. She wasn't safe; that much was obvious. The natural reaction would have been to scream but she found she couldn't. Not for the gag she could feel taut against her jaw and taste against the tip of her tongue, but because her voice wouldn't seem to come.  
She was so disorientated, and it occurred to Temperance that this in itself was peculiar. She didn't often get confused, especially not to the point of not being able to comprehend her entire being. The last time had been New Orleans, when she'd woken covered in blood.  
There was blood now, she could feel it clinging to the side of her face, but it seemed to be hers this time. Slowly, she began to register other sensations, as though her brain was trying to deliver them one at a time to keep her from becoming overwhelmed. She could hear music, the words drifting, fragmented, towards her.  
' _Hand out the arms and ammo_ ' She thought she recognised the unique vocal tones of the singer.  
' _We're going to blast our way through here_ ' The guitar was distinctive, too.  
' _We've got to get it together sooner or later_ ' The music was muffled, as though she were hearing it through the walls of her apartment, but she wasn't in at home any more.  
' _Because the revolution's here, and you know it's right._ ' A childhood memory of her mother and father dancing around the kitchen was at the surface of her subconscious.  
' _And you know that it's right._ ' Something in the Air was the song, she realised, and she tried not to listen. She wanted to keep her positive memories of her parents safe and hidden, not violated by this experience.

She was now certain that she was lying in the trunk of a car. Unbidden recollections of her traumatic experiences in foster care arose from within, and she could feel panic begin to rear it's dominating head. ' _Don't_ ,' She told herself, blinking back against the sting of hot tears. ' _That was different._ _ **This**_ _is different_.' She needed to be firm with herself and keep her emotions in check, or they might overwhelm her and leave only irrational thought behind. At work, during the more emotionally draining cases, she often found it easier to disconnect.  
Thoughts are not tangible, but even so, during times of great duress, she sometimes imagined herself giving the unwelcome intrusions a good shake, neatly folding them and burying them in a drawer deep in her subconscious. It didn't make sense, she knew that, but it helped.  
Forcing her focus back to the present, she shifted, getting as comfortable as it was possible to be. Now her head was clearer, she remembered more of what had happened. She'd hit her head, and Ophion had dislocated her shoulder in the fight. Both injuries throbbed, but there was no time to consider them now. The killer had her, and if he had followed his usual pattern, she was in her own car trunk. She catalogued it's contents in her mind; field kit, spare clothes for the messier crime scenes, first aid kit, water, and now herself.  
Narrowing all of her energy, she gingerly felt the space behind her with the hand of her uninjured arm, gritting her teeth at the jolt of pain it caused. Her fingers brushed against the smooth plastic of the first aid kit, fumbling for the clasp. There were scissors in there, and painkillers. She decided to use the former to break free, and the latter to take the edge from her pain once she was in a safer situation.  
Brennan found the scissors easily enough; it was wielding them that turned out to be the difficult part. With her wrists so tightly bound, she had to use one of the flat blades to slowly file down the rope. It would take a long time, and possible more than she had, but without her hands and feet free she was totally incapable of doing anything to improve her current position.  
She wondered if Booth knew yet, whether he'd called Cam and her team in. She _thought_ the frantic call she'd made to her partner had rung a few times before her phone had been smashed to pieces.  
She had confidence in Booth- he was the good guy, a staunch protector of his loved ones, some might even call him a white knight- if you believed in such things. She had confidence in Angela, Cam, Hodgins and Zack too. She trusted their skill and knowledge, but she wasn't about to sit and wait for them like some damsel in distress.  
She found herself thinking about the hair she'd pulled from the murderer's scalp. No doubt her team would find it, and maybe they could do something with it- although she wasn't quite sure what. At the time, she had yanked the hair from his head as part of a natural fight-or-flight response to danger. Now, she wondered if it was partly the scientist in her taking over, in those few seconds, to leave some evidence behind. It seemed plausible, with her work being such a predominant part of her life.  
Her wrists were now aching, muscles burning in protest as she persisted with the rope. Something in the Air had finished, Golden Brown was beginning. Temperance wondered how long she had to break free before the option was no longer available. She became acutely aware of her thirst, and decided it must have been several hours since she'd had any water to drink. It couldn't have been more than a day; she didn't quite feel weak enough.  
In the back of her mind, a little voice refused to be quiet. ' _Ten days,_ ' It told her, over and over. ' _Ten days, ten days, ten days_ '.  
In ten days, she would be dead, or she would have escaped. Either way, the whole experience would be over. It was the in-between part that was making her feel panicked.

* * *

"I don't think he was expecting this much of a fight." Cam observed as her eyes swept the disheveled room. ' _That's my girl._ ' Booth thought as he rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ease some of the tension.

"He seriously underestimated Dr. B if he thought she'd be easy to take." Hodgins looked up from where he knelt beside the bed. His eyes suddenly narrowed, as they always did when he spotted something unusual or out of place. "Hey, I've got a few hairs here." He used tweezers to carefully pick up each strand individually, passing them to Cam. She held them up against the light for a closer look.

"Hair follicles are still attached- they were yanked out. Too dark to be Dr. Brennan's." She crossed to the bedside table, taking swabs of the blood that pooled on the carpet, dark and menacing. Angela, who had thus far remained silent, turned suddenly on her heel and left the bedroom. Hodgins looked ready to follow, but Booth motioned that he should stay and continue his work. He walked after the artist himself as she sank heavily onto the couch in the living room. He slumped beside her, his fingers intertwined in knots.

"I should have seen this coming." It felt like a confession, an admission of the burning guilt that had started to settle in the pit of his stomach. She glanced up at him, then let her gaze drop back to the floor. When she didn't reply, he continued, "She fits the profile perfectly.". It was true; Bones had dark hair and light eyes, she was beautiful, and the most dedicated person he knew. Angela gave him another appraising look, and sighed.

"As much as I'd love to have someone to blame right in front of me, it wasn't your fault, Booth. We _all_ should have seen this coming." They sat in silence for a few minutes. Angela had insisted on coming, but now she felt useless, powerless. There was nothing she could do; she was completely out of her comfort zone. It was only when Booth stood to head back to the bedroom that she spoke again. "You were wrong about her fitting the profile, though." His brow creased in confusion.

"Huh?" She looked at him, her big, brown eyes intense and fiery, and yet so vulnerable and afraid.

"Those other women, they had no one to really search for them. They had no friends, no family." She took a deep breath, trying to quell her hammering heart. "But Brennan is loved fiercely. _We're_ her friends, _we're_ her family. And we have to find her before that bastard can tell her any different."

* * *

The lab was akin to a beehive; scientists flying past one another as they worked the case from every possible angle. A monitor on the central platform showed a countdown clock. Nine and a half days, or thereabouts, to find Bones. Nobody wanted to think about what would happen when the timer dropped to zero, and yet they couldn't keep it from their minds. Booth couldn't stop himself from wondering what it must be like for his partner; knowing almost exactly what would happen. She'd have four of her ribs broken, she'd be strangled, raped, beaten, and at the end of it all she would bleed until she died.  
Standing on the platform, Booth watched and waited. He had spoken to Cullen, assured him that he wasn't too close to continue working the case, and to Rebecca to cancel having Parker for the weekend. There was nothing more for him to do, but watch and wait until the squints sent a lead his way. Behind him, the alarm panel beeped as someone swiped their access card.

"The hair definitely belonged to the killer." Cam said, clicking towards him in her heels with Zack in tow. "I've passed it to Hodgins for isotope analysation." Booth nodded. That was what they'd expected.

"And the blood?" Cam gave him a look that said ' _You know the answer to that_ '. He did know. He could only nod again as they both turned to Zack, waiting expectantly.

"I think I've identified a pattern." He told them, his face pinched. Bones meant as much to the intern as she did to everyone else. "The first victim, a doctor, had fractures on the most commonly broken bones. The tobacco plant owner was poisoned with arsenic, and the journalist had her fingers severed." The words tumbled from his mouth, and once they'd escaped they could not be unsaid. Booth's stomach rolled with a wave of nausea. Now Zack had grasped the meaning behind the strange injuries, it seemed so obvious.

"So what will he do to Bones?" The question was out before he could stop himself, and it was a question he did not want the answer to.

* * *

A rush of relief flooded Brennan as the last few fibres of rope snapped. Her arms were stiff and sore from hours of being trapped behind her back, her shoulder throbbing worse than ever as she slowly brought her arms in front of her. She was bleeding from tugging so hard against her bonds, but she tried to ignore the pain and reached for a bottle of water, holding it between her legs so she could open it with her good hand. She pulled the gag away and took desperate gulps, letting droplets of water run down her chin, before she turned her attention to her ankles. It was easier to cut through the rope now she could use the scissors correctly, but the blades weren't particularly sharp. After all, they were made for cutting through bandages in emergencies rather than rope in a kidnap situation. Her breathing was ragged, catching in her chest as though Ophion's hands were still wrapped around her neck. Her thoughts travelled fast, cars on a highway, a mile a minute. But here, there lay hope. She hadn't formulated a plan yet; too overloaded with feelings of both a physical and emotional nature. She'd relied on her instincts this far, because there had been so little time to think. Trying to engage her rational side, bring it back to her, she looked around as she slowly cut through the rope. There was no release catch to open the trunk from the inside. As soon as she was free, Temperance decided she would get one installed just in case- or perhaps she would get a new car, one that she hadn't been held captive in.

She froze, suddenly, painfully aware that the music had stopped. She'd been so preoccupied in her thoughts and actions that she hadn't noticed the car rolling to a stop. She wasn't ready, she wasn't prepared. Temperance shifted herself around so she was facing the trunk lid, barely daring to breathe. When it opened, she raised her legs, ready to kick at whatever part of Ophion she could reach. When the first thing she saw was a gun, aimed squarely at her chest, she paused for a fraction of a second. She thought about how bullets averaged a speed of 1700 miles per hour. She thought about her feet, still tied together. She thought about the expressions on her friend's faces when they found out she'd gotten herself shot before they even had a chance to find her. The odds were stacked so high against her, and yet for a fleeting moment, she desperately wanted to try. There were too many variables however, too many possible outcomes. She let the moment pass, hoping that this wasn't her only chance for freedom. She told herself that if she didn't escape, Booth would find her. Science would find her.

Chase Ophion was a tall man, standing five to six inches taller than Brennan. She had already seen his face from the ID card the aquarium manager had given them, but the photo was barely bigger than a postage stamp. He was lean, but his arm muscles were well defined through the black trench coat he wore. He held his shoulders back and his head high, giving him an air of confidence and high self worth.  
Facially, he was fairly nondescript. His hair, almost black in colour, was short, contrasting against his pale skin. His eyes were as dark as his hair, and currently lingered on Temperance. He looked from her, to the rope she'd broken free of, to the scissors still clutched in her fist. For a moment she thought he would become angry, but he simply shook his head and sighed as though she were a petulant child. Reaching forward, he took the scissors. She gave no resistance with the gun still aimed at her chest.  
Without saying a word, Ophion extracted a knife from one of his pockets, the blade about six inches long. The handle was made from some kind of dark wood, carved with what looked like images of serpents. She flinched away as he leaned towards her again, but all he did was sever the ropes binding her legs. He motioned for her to get out of the trunk. She stayed still, statuesque, her eyes wide with fear.

"Where are we? Where have you taken me?" Her voice wobbled when she spoke. The man remained silent, but his forehead creased in irritation, holding her gaze with those dark, emotionless eyes. She sat for a few more seconds, trying to calm herself, before she decided it would probably be best not to piss off the guy holding both a gun and a sharp weapon in her direction. Slowly, she pushed herself upwards onto her stiff, trembling legs. He took her by the bad arm, wrapping his cold fingers tightly just above her elbow. Had she tried to run at that moment, all she would have accomplished was more pain in her already excruciating shoulder joint. Brennan let him lead her away from her car, down a long winding path surrounded by trees and shrubs. She thought about how Hodgins might know exactly where they were based on the surrounding plant life.  
Despite her lack of superstition, she still felt a shiver run down her spine. It was a truly eerie place even in daylight. The usually bright and beautiful colours of nature seemed oddly muted; a mixture of dark green and brown. The sun seemed more distant than it had ever been, and it seemed as though the air was empty, bereft. There was no sound of birds singing to one another, or small animals rustling in the undergrowth. It was as if the earth's natural melody had simply been stolen away. Temperance forced herself to keep going. One foot in front of the other, breathe in, breathe out. Don't think. Don't feel. They walked in silence if not for the slight involuntary quiver when she breathed. She was aware that she was shaking, but she wasn't sure if it was out of fear or the cold that permeated her skin. She realised was still wearing her pyjamas. Looking at her feet, she observed that her socks were soaked, and the soles were starting to hurt. There was too much pain elsewhere for her to be too concerned about this.  
When it felt as though they had been walking down the path for hours, a grey stone wall came into view. It was a small house, surrounded by a tall, rusty iron gate. It looked as though an extension had been built fairly recently, at least a couple of decades after the main building.  
Temperance felt the shackles of terror tighten around her chest. ' _Fear is the precursor to bravery_ ' she thought, stumbling along with Ophion's fingers still tight around her arm. But there was another voice in her head, whispers created by uncertainty. ' _You could die here_ ', it told her. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut for a moment.  
One foot in front of the other. Breathe in. Breathe out. _You could die here_.


End file.
